Renji the Mentor!
by Black Lighted Clouds
Summary: The now 15 year old Karin Kurosaki has come into her powers, so a Soul Reaper has to come to the human world to be her mentor. And which poor sap gets the job? Renji does! Rating might change, Renji/Karin, Ichigo/Rukia. ON HIATUS until further notice.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I was looking up stories here and I realised that I like a pairing that apparently no one else does because there is not a single story with this pairing. So I wrote this. Enjoy.**

**Renji the Mentor?**

Renji paced around his room, wondering why in the name of the Soul Society did it have to be him? Ichigo's younger sister, Karin, had been revealed to have spirit powers. Commander Yamato, not wanting to waste the potential he saw in the girl, decided that she would be trained to be a Soul Reaper.

So why not enter her into the academy? Because she was a living human. So, the Commander decreed that the girl should have an advanced Soul Reaper as her mentor, to live in the human world, in Urahara's shop and teach the girl whenever she had a spare moment.

And who should be given this assignment? None other than Renji Abarai, assistant captain of Sixth Division. And he was absolutely furious about it.

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'Damn, why can't humans just wear normal clothes?!' Renji's mind hissed as he scratched at his legs, which were clad in strange attire, he remembered, that was called "jeans". At the moment, the red-haired Soul Reaper couldn't care less if most humans seemed to wear them, this alien fabric known as "denim" was irritating his legs!

"Got a rash, Renji?"

Said man looked up at his laughing childhood friend, Rukia, as she leaned her petite frame against the substitute Soul Reaper, Ichigo Kurosaki. Behind them, stood a girl who Renji assumed was Karin Kurosaki.

She was about fifteen years old, her head reaching just a little over her brothers shoulder. She had raven black hair that touched her shoulders and dark brown/black eyes; he couldn't tell which from this distance. She wore comfortable looking black shorts and a loose black and red T-shirt with a red baseball cap.

Despite her clothes, Renji could tell that she had quite a mature body and looked athletic, and her face, like her brothers, had a sort of half-scowl on it, like she wasn't annoyed about anything in particular, just a thoughtful face.

'Aw, crap! Don't tell me she's like Ichigo! I don't think I can survive a female version of him!'

"Renji . . . Renji! Wake up!" The assistant captain blinked as he saw his friends hand wave back and forth in front of his face. He must have spaced out as he thought about his new student.

"Wha- Sorry, Rukia, I spaced out then. What did you say?"

Rukia huffed. "I said, this is Karin and that we would leave you to it. Honestly! Come on, Ichigo, we've got business to attend to!"

Ichigo just scowled as she stalked past him. "Yeah, yeah, I'm coming, midget. Good luck!" he called over his shoulder. Renji wasn't sure if that comment was meant for Karin or him.

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Ichigo was trying his very best not to laugh while Rukia gave Renji the icepack, who put it against his head with a scowl. He winced as the cold ice made contact with his swollen head and glared dappers at Karin, who glared back, just as viciously.

"Jeez, Renji," Ichigo called with a smirk. "I never thought the brilliant assistant captain to Sixth Division who gets his ass kicked by my kid sister."

Renji now turned his glare on Ichigo. "First of all, she kicked my head, not my ass. And secondly, that was only because I held back as I was fighting a weak little human girl."

Next thing he knew, Renji felt a stinging pain in his left temple and then his right one as he flew over the table and crashed into the wall. He looked up in time to see Karin, who was now standing on the table he had been sitting at moments ago, lower her leg with which she had attacked him – again.

"What's your problem?!" Renji snapped at her as he jumped to his feet.

Karin jumped onto the floor and crossed her arms over her chest, looking quite peeved. "Don't ever call me a "weak little human girl"."

Renji was about to shout, but smirked instead. "Fine. I won't call you weak again. But I warn you, in our next little training session, I'm not gonna hold back, like I did this time. Let's see how you fare, shall we?"

Karin's lips twitched into her own smirk. "Yeah, we will."

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**A/N: Okay, to anyone who's read the** _Vampire Academy_** series, this is like Rose and Dimitri, okay? But I will make the events a lot different.**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: My older brother recently got his Ls, so that was the inspiration for this chapter.**

**Chapter 2**

Renji glared at the white-washed walls in irritation, his face set in a scowl, the teenager beside him ignoring his existence. Observing her out of the corner of his left eye, he decided to ask the first question that came to mind, just to break the silence. "Karin?"

"Yeah?" She flipped the page of the heavy book she was reading.

"Why are you reading that book?"

"These stupid lessons have put me behind in my classes, I was supposed to have finished this last weekend."

Renji bristled. "Your lessons are important! You need to-"

"Learn to correctly wield my Zanpakuto, Kidou and control my spirit energy or it could mean my death and possibly the death of others in combat with Hollows." She finished for him in a monotone.

Renjis' scowl deepened. Karin glanced at him and said, "You keep that up and you'll turn into Ichigo."

"Look who's talking." He muttered under his breath in reply.

Karin glared and went back to her book. Renji tried to distract himself with an old magazine lying on the tabled beside the blue couch they were sitting on. He failed miserably. "Karin?"

"Yes?" Another chapter finished.

"Why am I taking this test again?"

Karin sighed and put down her book so she could concentrate on her confused mentor better. "Because, in this world, you can't use flash-stepping anymore because it will draw attention to you. So, you've got to do what the rest of us poor suckers do: drive a car. And you're not allowed to legally do that without taking this test."

The red-haired Soul Reaper just stared at her. " . . . What exactly is the test about?"

The black haired girl picked up her book again. "The rules of driving. Don't worry 'bout it, I already submitted your test."

"But I didn't do any test!"

"It was an on-line one, I did it for you. I did Rukias' too. Ichigo was about ready to kill me and all."

"Oh . . . If you've already done it then why do we have to be here?!!"

The group of people by the door jumped and stared at the man, halfway through a freak-out, causing the teenager to glare at him.

"Because we're getting your licence. Now shut up before you get us kicked out."

The man huffed and turned away. As a thought struck him, he frowned. "On-line? What does that mean?"

"The Internet."

". . . Internet? Is that some kind of fishing technique?"

Karin sweat dropped. "I am not explaining that to you."

"Why not?"

"Because I haven't got a spare twenty years to do so." Looking up at the screen on the opposite wall, she stood and said, "That's our number. Gotta go."

Renji glowered at her retreating back. Removing his gaze, he let it wonder to anyone or anything of particular interest. Not that there was anything particularly interesting about. Except a man across the large room, dressed very smartly in navy blue business pants, a white collared shirt and a navy blue jacket, whose face rang a bell in Renji's pineapple head. A very familiar man . . .

"Captain?!!"

As even more people than last time turned to look at the odd man with the strange hair style, who they were by now sure was a lunatic, Byakuya walked over to the assistant captain and took Karin's vacated seat. "Renji."

"Captain, what are you doing here?!"

"Calm down. I need to report the girls' progress to Commander Yamato. So, how is she getting along?"

Snapping back down to Earth, Renji stated quickly, "In the four months that I have trained her, she has mastered flash-stepping and her Zanpakuto's Shikai. Her best skill is her sword work and combat mainly, she needed a lot of work on her Kidou, but she's finally beginning to grasp it. As soon as she gets a good grip on it, I plan to begin to teach her Bankai."

Byakuya nodded along with what he was saying, studying his assistant captain as though he saw something interesting.

"YOU PERVERT!!!"

The two men looked up to see a middle-aged man fly through the air, before crashing into the opposite wall, Karin in front of immediately, where she began to pound him into the ground mercilessly. "DON'T YOU EVER TRY TO GRAB MY ASS AGAIN!!!"

Byakuya shot Renji a quizzical look, causing the other Soul Reaper to simply shrug. "I told you. Combat."

Byakuyas' eyes swivelled back to the still rampaging girl. "The power is strong in this one."

Renji brought his hands up to unconsciously rub at his previously abused temples. "Tell me about it."

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Byakuya drank his tea quietly while watching his sister across the table from him. The Kurosaki boy had excused himself to the bathroom for a minute, so the Kuchiki Lord decided to use this as an opportunity to share something with Rukia.

"Rukia."

"Yes, brother?" She replied, dark blue eyes staring at him in expectation.

"About Renji and Karin. Do you think it was a good idea to have them as mentor and student?"

Rukia looked rather surprised at his abrupt statement. "Renji seems to be doing a good job with her. I can't really see a reason why there should be a problem. Well, they argue a lot, but so do Ichigo and I."

Byakuya looked into his cup. "That's precisely what I meant. You and Kurosaki."

The door smashed open before Rukia could reply, showing a very pissed off Renji and an even angrier Karin.

"What's up?" Said the now present Ichigo, an eyebrow raised as he stared at his little sister.

"This moron!" she shouted, pointing an accusatory finger at Renji. "Giving HIM a license is more deadly to the public than the Black Plague! We drove along the side roads to give him some practice, right? So what does he do? Drives all over some old geezers lawn, smashes every single stinking window of Urahara Shoten in, starts a fight with the copper when he was pulled over for speeding and gets stuck in a freaking BUSH!!!"

Renji's face now matched his hair as he turned to her and said, "It was an overgrown tree!"

"It was a bloody bush!"

"Tree!"

"Bush!"

"Tree!"

""Bush!"

"Tree!"

Yuzu came into the room and ordered Karin their room for being so loud and Renji out the door until his next session with Karin in two days. Who would've guess that Yuzu could be so vicious with a feather duster? Well, Kon, but that's besides the point.

Byakuya, who had quietly observed the thing, murmured into his teacup, "I rest my case."

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**A/N: Yes, this chapter is relevant. I was trying to make their relationship clear.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Sorry for the delay, it couldn't be helped.**

**Chapter 3**

Renji ran as fast as he could through the streets of Karakura, destroying the Hollows as he went. He glanced up as a voice yelled, "Renji!"

Ichigo jumped down from the wall to run beside his friend. "Where's Rukia and the others?" the redhead asked.

"They headed over to the centre of town, the Hollows are gathering there." He answered before leaping forward to kill the Hollow in front of them. "You don't think another Menos Grande will appear, do you?"

"I dunno," the assistant captain shrugged. "We'll just have to deal with it if one does."

They arrived at the centre of Karakura, surveying their friends blowing the monsters to bits. "Hat n' Clogs! What's going on?! Why are all these Hollows here?!" Ichigo hollered.

Urahara stood calmly amidst the chaos, peering from under his white and green hat at the orange haired man. "Ask Uryu and Kon."

Renji was about to ask what the hell Urahara was talking about when two things distracted him: the Hollow trying to bite his head off which he quickly finished off and a familiar person surrounded by four Hollows he saw in his peripheral vision.

Karin swung her zanpakuto viciously, taking down the first two before the others came at her, who soon met the same fate as them. Renji couldn't help but feel a small bubble of pride well up inside of him as he continued his own battle. On the run over here, he had been quite worried about her, but she was doing extremely well and didn't seem to need his help at all. Or so he thought.

Orihime called Tsubaki back to her once she was sure the Hollows were finished, feeling so relieved that she neglected to watch her back for more. As the scorpion-like creature descended upon her, Karin jumped in its path, its long, pointed tail ripping into her left arm before being destroyed by her blade and dissolving with a hideous scream.

"Karin!" Ichigo shouted in concern.

"It's okay, I'm al-" she cut herself off as she avoided the next masked monsters strike. Soon, nearly all of them were gone, only three or four were remaining and no more appearing above their heads, luckily.

Renji destroyed his happily and looked around feeling relieved. Until he heard a short, sharp shriek of pain, accompanied with the sounds of bones crunching and muscle tearing. Turning on his heel, he felt his stomach turn by what he saw.

One of the last remaining Hollows had dug one of it's tentacles into Karin's damaged arm, right through the centre of her wrist, splattering blood all over her face and clothes. She swung her sword yet again in an attempt to kill the horrific creature when another tentacle wrapped itself around her right wrist and forced her to let go off her weapon. Renji felt a thrill of terror shoot up his spine as the Hollow opened its jaws and leaned in to devour his student.

"KARIN!!" Ichigo bellowed as he immediately destroyed his opponent and rushed to his younger sister while the rest of their friends watched in horror. The sound of the Hollows jaws tearing through flesh ringing in the sudden silence of the group.

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**A/N: Sorry, I just love ending things at cliffhangers. Plus, if I do it like this, the next chapter makes more sense.**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: I felt bad for making you guys wait so long, so I'm putting this chapter up too.**

**Chapter 4**

Everyone stared in shock as the Hollow struggled to pull its teeth out of the Soul Reapers torso. Renji shoved it back with all his remaining strength before delivering the final blow. The redheaded man looked down at the wounds the masked creatures teeth had left in his chest and stomach, blood pouring onto his shredded uniform.

The full damage of all the injuries he had received in the battle finally hit him and the world went black, his heavy body hitting the ground, fiery hair flying in all directions and a horrified voice screaming, "Renji!!"

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The black began to fade to colours as the Soul Reaper regained consciousness. Looking around, he realised he was back at Urahara Shoten. 'What am I doing here?'

Suddenly the memories of the previous fight hit him and he bolted upright, intense pain exploding in his upper body. A hand gently touched his shoulder and coaxed him back down onto the futon. "You shouldn't do that; your wounds need to heal."

Renji turned his head to look at Karin as she sat back down next to him. "Karin, are you okay? Your arms must be torn up pretty badly."

The black-haired girl looked down at the bandages. "They're healing. You're a lot worse off than I am."

They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes before Renji became aware that something was off about his student. "Karin?"

She looked at him hesitantly. "Yes?"

"What's wrong?"

She was silent a little while longer before she replied, ". . . I don't understand."

The older man frowned. "Understand what?"

The teenager glanced at him for a moment. "You could've been killed, you know. Why did you jump in front of me?"

Renji simply looked at her quietly. "I didn't want you to die."

Her eyebrows rose up her brow. "I mean it. I care about you, Karin. You're a great kid."

At this, she offered him a shy smile and her onyx eyes gleamed with an emotion he didn't recognise. They clouded over again a moment later and she adverted them again. "I'm sorry. You shouldn't have had to save me. I messed up."

Renji shook his head and softly touched her still-healing arm. "No, it's not your fault. That's just the way fights go sometimes, it happens. Actually, I'm quite proud of you."

Her head jerked up to stare at him incredulously. "Why?"

"Because, this was your first time ever facing Hollows, it's always frightening the first time, but you stood your ground and didn't run away. You managed to take all but the last one down without the least bit of assistance from anybody and when Orihime needed your help you leapt in without a second thought and killed that Hollow perfectly. That's why I'm proud of you." He finished with a bright grin on his face to offer her further assurance.

Karin stared at him for a little bit longer before once again smiling and looking down, a light pink blush now colouring her cheeks. She was quiet for another moment before walking to the other side of the room and picking up what looked like a steel casserole dish, a black bottle and a blue plastic bottle.

She once again took her place by his side and handed the blue bottle to him. "What's this?"

"We called Hanataro over to heal you, and when he was done, he gave us this. He said that when you wake up, to drink all of this and you'll be completely healed in less than two hours. Apparently it's a new toxin the Captain of Squad Four recently invented to help lesser members keep up with the demands of healing the injured during intense battles."

Renji carefully took it from her, opened it and sniffed the contents. It didn't seem so bad. Bringing it to his lips, he took a big gulp and used all of his will power to swallow it instead of spitting it back out as he so badly wanted to do.

He tried to hand it back to Karin but his student only offered him a knowing grin and said, "Sorry, Renji, you gotta drink all of it. Now."

He grimaced at her and looked at the liquid yet again. Sighing, he decided it was best to get it all over and done with and chugged it all down his throat, pulling a funny face when he was done and making Karin laugh at the sight.

He glared at her again. "What's the rest of this stuff?"

The teenager composed herself and said, "Well, Orihime was concerned about you and she thought you might be hungry when you woke up, so she made you this."

Renji gaped. Karin grinned again and gave him a pitying look. "Ichigo and Uryu tried to stop her, but she would have none of it. They couldn't push it any further without hurting her feelings, so . . ." she trailed off at that, knowing her mentor needed no further explanation.

"Oh . . . er . . . Oh! That reminds me," the Soul Reaper babbled, trying to put off the moment when he had to eat the meal, "Urahara said something about how Uryu and Kon were to blame for all the Hollows . . . So, what's the story?"

Karin snorted and shook her head. "Well, Kon somehow or another got his body ripped up, yet again, so Ichigo took him to Uryu to be sewn up. Uryu still had some Hollow bait left over from the last time he used it and Kon found it while Ichigo and Uryu had another fight over something stupid, he thought it was a cookie, started playing with it, broke it and you know the rest. "

Renji nodded along with everything she said, finding it rather odd that none of it surprised him in the slightest. Karin smirked at him and he knew it was time. "Alright then," she stated, standing up and walking to the door, "I'll leave you alone to enjoy your lunch."

The Soul Reaper scowled darkly at the door as it closed behind her. He decided to start with the drink; hopefully it would have a strong enough taste to cover up the food. He inspected the red liquid for a few minutes before swallowing a mouthful.

His brownish eyes slid in and out of focus for a few seconds before an insane grin spread across the redheaded man's face and he bolted out of bed. He must get to the Soul Society immediately!

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**A/N: Yeah, I decided to cut it off there. This chapter was longer than usual, so don't complain.**


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